


Messages

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [70]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s10e07 The Pyramid at the End of the World, Episode: s10e08 The Lie of the Land, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Please Don't Kill Me, Plot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-04 20:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11562441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: In the final hour, in the deepest pit; without hope, without witness, without reward… and always when he needed her the most.  She believed in him, and that was enough.  She reminded him who he was and what he stood for.  He’d keep on trying to be that person.  That was the best he could possibly do.





	Messages

**Author's Note:**

> Remember how you guys liked me after the last chapter?? Just... just keep remembering that.

[Earth, 2017]

The first message was from him.

The Doctor watched the mental repeat of his simulated self facing off against the Monk with his hearts in his throat and a growing sense of determination.  Of course River had saved him.  Isn’t that what she was always doing?  No matter if he wasn’t real and she was on another hard drive somewhere.  No matter if he couldn’t read the words he so desperately clung to.  

In the final hour, in the deepest pit; without hope, without witness, without reward… and always when he needed her the most.  She believed in him, and that was enough.  She reminded him who he was and what he stood for.  He’d keep on trying to be that person.  That was the best he could possibly do.

 

ADDITIONAL MESSAGE

P.S. Dear Doctor,

Save Them

The Doctor x.

 

___

The second message came while he was in the control room, contemplating how the Monks were likely to make their first move whilst he plucked at his guitar.

Suddenly, his mind was flooded with an image too vibrant and real to be only his memories.

“River?” he gasped.  She was radiant in the unseeing dark, like Aphrodite rising from the sea.

“Doctor,” her voice said in his mind, rich and musical and full of love.  

He knew what this was.  Psychic answerphone.  But she’d never learned how to do it!

“I’ve got to give you some important news, darling, so you showed me how to leave a message.  You won’t remember it now, it's too early.”

She beamed at him.  She was so beautiful.  It had been so long since she’d visited his dreams, his hearts ached to reach for her, to hold her and kiss her and speak to her, but she was just an image, a recording.  He could only clench his hands uselessly at his sides and wish to touch her.

“It’s after Darillium, and _you_ were waiting for me in my flat.”  She scrunched her nose as she smiled.  “The one who is definitely _not_ my favourite, because I do not have those.”

Oh, well, he knew they’d got up to something together in between.  Apparently he’d wasted no time in meeting her.

“Well, thing is, darling… I think Milly is coming along sooner than we anticipated.”

He froze.

“If it makes you feel any better, the test came in so quickly it must have been _you,_ although as you well know, you jealous idiot, all of you are you."

Oh, no.  Oh, River.  She was alone.  He was going to miss it.  How could he miss this and leave her on her own?!  He couldn’t.  He wouldn’t!

“I’m so sorry you’re not with me, honey.  Only… well, you are.  I have to make sure you don’t remember it until it’s safe, but I couldn’t talk you out of staying with me.”  

She smiled fondly and his hearts swelled.

“I don’t know where she’ll be,” she said, glancing down, her smile turning melancholy.  “One of us must have seen to it that there were no records of her ever being born.  And if I’m waiting for my death, and you can’t remember this, I must have found somewhere safe to keep her when it was… time.  When I do, I’ll be in touch again.

“I love you so much, darling.  I’ll be waiting for you.  We both will.”

Her image faded and he was in darkness again.

He’d stayed.  

He stayed!  All those… how many years ago?  Twelve-hundred?  He was with her, that long ago, being a family.  How had he _regressed_ so fucking much in between?  She was a saint for putting up with him.  No, no, she would not appreciate that metaphor at all.

He had to remember it.  He was not waiting around; he was going to dig into his brain if he had to do it with a fucking spoon and get it back.  He needed something to set it off, trigger the memories.  Where had they lived?  In the TARDIS?

“Hey!” he shouted into the console room at large.  “You were there!  There’s bound to be stuff, right?  Where’s all the stuff?”

“Doctor?” Bill’s faint voice came from outside the front doors.  “You talking to yourself?  Someone’s here to see you!  Like, _really important_ someones?”

“Busy, Bill!  Try me later!” he called.

“Doctor!”  She said something else after that, but he'd already tuned it out.

What would there have been?  Well, baby; there would be… oh, his cot.  Did… Milly sleep in that cot before Athena?   _Before Melody?_ He supposed that was only from his point of view, but even so...

The Doctor sat down heavily on the step.

“You know, any time you might like to give me a hand with this great big mess, I wouldn’t object to it,” he announced to the room.

About ten seconds later, there was a “ding!” from the console.

“That had better not be toast,” he warned, scrambling back to his feet.

He fumbled at the controls, circling the console, searching for the source of the sound.  He hoped the TARDIS knew enough to make it something tactile since reading a monitor was obviously out of the question.  The ding sounded again; this time he realised it was coming from under the console.

“What’s this…” the Doctor mumbled as he knelt down to investigate.  “Microwave?  I told you, I’ll not be appeased by snacks this time!”

He pulled on the door handle to no avail, and then his hand brushed over the combination lock.

“Oh, not microwave; safe.   _Time_ safe!”  He hadn’t used that in ages!

Oh, and it was deadlocked, wasn’t it.

Half an hour later, and a great deal more disgruntled, the Doctor finally managed to crack it by ear.  River was much better at that.  God, he needed her.  So many little things.  Making his tea just right, leaving her shoes all over the TARDIS, kissing him goodnight and good morning and good I-just-saw-you-across-the-room.  Cracking safes.  

He opened the door.  There was something rectangular inside.  Shoebox!  Rather like the one he’d left for Bill…  Trembling slightly in anticipation, he removed the lid.

Well.  What had he expected, a shoeboxful of a miraculous cure for blindness as well?  His hand brushed over the contents, fingertips catching on the edges of polaroids and 3x5s.  Family photos?  His family, in all its ridiculous upside-down, back-to-front-ness?  Fat lot of good it did him now.

Still, just to be sure.  He searched out his bigger-on-the-inside inside pocket, gathered the photos into neat stacks, and tucked them in.

He was halfway to strapping on his guitar again to resume his meditation when something that had been needling at the back of his mind suddenly came to the fore.

How had he ended up there, anyway?  River said he was in her flat the minute she got back from Darillium.  That was good; he’d been there to comfort her.  But how did he know?

Time safe.

_Time safe!_

The Doctor scrambled round the console in search of paper and pen, his hands flailing and knocking levers and instruments about.  He could just jot down the coordinates; he was a nosy sod, he’d go check it out.  Couldn’t leave a mystery unsolved.  With luck, his blind handwriting wouldn’t be the mystery.

He quickly crouched down and shoved the note into the safe, using his sonic to program in some time in the rather fuzzy middle of the Fop’s memories.  Hopefully that was right.

He shut the door and spun the lock.  Invitation sent to himself.  He wouldn't be able to resist it.

And at that instant, another “lock” clicked open.

“Oh,” the Doctor said, gracelessly falling back from sitting on his heels to sitting on his arse.

Like so much else in their lives, it was a causal loop.  But he'd been missing pieces.  So now he'd done his bit, and it was coming back around...

A smile spread slowly across his face as the memories trickled in.  Soon he was crying or laughing or both, possibly, and no doubt sounding an absolute nutter.  But that was okay.  It was all okay.

“Doctor?” Bill called.  “You alright in there?”

He couldn’t see how it ended.  Maybe that bit was still up to him.

He just had to save the world first.  All in a day’s work, really.

Eventually, wiping his eyes and grinning, he managed to clamber back to his feet and feel his way over to his guitar.

___

[Earth, 2018]

The last message came about five months into his stay on the prison ship.  The Doctor had been working his way through the ranks of guards, unbrainwashing as he went, and plotting with Nardole.  And enjoying having his eyesight again, of course, though the world was awfully grey and dull.  He wasn’t sure if that was a side effect of his recently-returned vision or part of the whole dystopia thing.  The Monks _were_ quite committed to a certain aesthetic; he wouldn’t put it past them.  

But the first thing he’d looked at once he made it out of the lab were the pictures tucked into his coat pocket.

His immediate reaction was a flash of envy; he couldn’t help it, even if he now had the memories to go along with the photos.  It was _him,_ he knew it was him.  But he never seemed to know it as well as River did.  She just saw to the hearts of him so easily, his faces and superficial personality changes as inconsequential as a change of clothes.  It was only the memories he was missing that sometimes hurt her.  

He always experienced the transition more wrenchingly than that, even the comparatively easy ones.  But she always knew.  Her belief in who he was at the core made it easier to find that part of himself when he’d strayed too far to feel it.

But at least he’d been there.  At least they were together, however scrambled-up it was.  

And here in the Monks' world, he bided his time, waiting for the right moment.  Waiting to see if Bill would still be Bill.  Good thing he’d had plenty of practise with staying put and waiting.

He knew the minute he picked up the phone that something was wrong.

“There’s a message for you on the TARDIS sir,” Nardole said, his voice quivering with anxiety.

“Yes, and?” the Doctor prodded impatiently, switching to speaker as he stood and began to pace around his desk.  “Who from?  What’s it say?”

“I had to dig out an old cassette player to play it.  It looks more than a bit worse for wear, sir; there’s parts that aren’t easy to make out—”

“Nardole,” he said firmly.  “Get to the point.”

“I… I’d better just play it for you, then.”

There was rustling and then the hum of a speaker, followed by a lot of static and zippy tape sounds.  Eventually something broke through the white noise: the voice of a young woman.  Low, American, and somehow familiar, though the Doctor couldn’t place it for the life of him.

“—said that you’ve altered the arch, so I—” she was cut off by the roar of static for several seconds, “—emories, but I’ll forget anything they could use to find me, including who you are.  Milly’s going to put me down on Luna in 5195—”

He sucked in a breath and his hearts skipped a beat.  

Oh, _no._  No no no no.  It couldn’t be.

“—must know what I’m going to do there.  I’m sure you or Mom will track me down.  I… know you were probably hoping I’d be younger.  After we got word from you, we just didn’t want to leave Gran and Grandad, you know?  Especially since they were getting older— we weren’t going to have them left in a home when we could take care of them.  I hope you don’t mind.  They were really happy here.  We all were.”

Static took over again as the Doctor stumbled back into his chair, his legs turned to jelly, hearts pounding.  He dragged a shaking hand over his face.

A few seconds later the static cleared again.  “—after Grandad went in ’89.  They were always talking about you and Mom, right up til the end.  He sort of… stuck around, for a whole day after, on the pager— that’s what we ended up calling them, the communicator things you sent us.”  

Well, he'd have to remember to do that.  Oh, Rory.  And Amy... He sighed.  

It was okay.  It was good the girls stayed.  The Ponds needed them.  It was good they were never alone in the end.  He'd still have forever with his daughters, he told himself.  It was okay.

She'd trailed off, for once into silence and not static.  Finally her voice came in again, softer.  

“Kept going on about his shoelaces.”

Shoelaces?  Shoelaces.  Where had he heard tha—

Suddenly all the air was knocked from the Doctor’s lungs.

“Anyway,” the message continued, sounding a million miles away, “guess it won’t be long now.  Maybe I’ll follow the family tradition and go in for archaeology while I’m there.”  She laughed.  “Milly said that would drive you crazy.  Well, I’ll be waiting.  I… really do look forward to meeting you again.  Lo—”  Static devoured the rest of the tape.

“No,” the Doctor said, softly.  Then, louder.   _“No.”_

“Sir?”  Nardole was on the line again.  “I know she’s grown up more than you hoped, but now we know where to find her!  As soon as all this business with the Monks is over—”

“No!” he roared in the direction of the phone.  “This is one of their tricks.  It’s the Monks, they don’t trust me, they’re trying to break me down!  Hah!  Oh, they’ll regret that.  They will regret it!”

“Doctor…” Nardole trailed off, confusion and concern in his voice.  

“Or, or maybe this isn’t even real!  Maybe this is another one of their simulations!  _Pain is information._  We’re still in it, Nardole!  They want information!”

“Information?  What information?”

“Say a number!  Count of three, say any random number!”

“Sir?”

“Do it!  One, two, three, eight-hundred and seventeen!”

“—fifty-one,” said Nardole, utterly confused.

“No,” the Doctor whispered again, “No!  This isn’t— no, it’s them.  It’s still them.  Keeping their propagandist in line, eh?  Ohhh ho, they can’t let me get too hopeful, might start making designs on overthrowing their rubbish world!  They planted it.  They’re trying to manipulate me.  They think they can use her to control me!”

“Doctor, please, what is going on?”

“They must have gotten it out of me in one of the simulations.  They must have got me talking about the Library somehow— couldn’t ask for more _information_ from me than that, huh?  Ohh, clever, very clever.”

“I’m really not—”

“Anita,” he said finally, hanging his head as he leaned over his desk, hands gripping the edge, white-knuckled.  “That was Anita.”

“It was Athena, sir.  It had to be.”

“I know.”  His voice cracked as he blinked back tears.  “I gave her a chameleon arch.  In case she’d need it as part of the exit strategy from Manhattan.  She’s Anita.”

“Sir, I don’t know who Anita is.”

“I really liked her,” he managed to choke out.  He took a deep breath.  “She died.  In the Library.”

_“What?”_

“They want me to think it’s her.  They want me to think she’s…”  He paused, a new cold wave of fear passing over him.  “Nardole, it was her voice.  It was Anita’s voice.”

Clever Anita, whose dry wit didn’t wither even as she faced her death, who was brave even when she was crying—

“That— that can’t be right!” Nardole cried.

“No, it, it can’t.  They… they must be tricking me.  They don’t want me to have anything to live for outside of their control.  They want me hopeless.  They could have gotten all this out of me in the simulations.  They’ve designed this specially to neutralise me, and it’s not going to fucking work, because I will _not_ forgive this!”

“Sir,” Nardole said slowly, his voice heavy with dread, “could they have gotten her voice in the simulations?”

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth.

“Doctor?”

“Keep on plan, Nardole,” he snapped.  “It’s nearly time for you to intercept Bill.”

“And then what will we do?”

A grim smile broke across the Doctor’s face, and a guard on the far side of the room shifted uncomfortably.

“We tear their whole fucking world down.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> DON'T KILL ME!
> 
> I have been planning on this since.. somewhere in the early first quarter of this fic. It was going to be a last-minute reveal but as series 10 played out, there was a clear point where Twelve seemed to have a turning point in his mentality that didn't have any real basis in what was on screen, so.... here we are. :x
> 
> If I've sent anyone to rewatch Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, my work is done ;)


End file.
